Several Things

A recent search referral:
plaster crumbling away salt infection

I read this and immediately thought, Yes, that's me all right...


Some good photographs of Chennai.

A new(ish) Indian blog directory.

I love mehndi. Here's a photoset of Indian mehndi on Flickr. And one of Arabic mehndi. (both of these links via Dispatch from L.A.)


A pleasant side-effect of the real estate boom: yesterday afternoon one of the city's few organised real estate brokerage firms sent us a bushel basket full of perfectly ripe banganapalli mangoes. How many such baskets must they have delivered all over the city?

I've eaten more mangoes this year than ever before, and the season is not over. Last night Mary surprised me with a sweet-sour curry of green mangoes from our garden, after I had eaten one of the meltingly sweet real estate-mangoes for tea...

It is equally sweet-sour to remember that mango season will be over soon; though if it weren't I would be in danger of ending up like the young English lady in India whose epitaph I'm sure I read about somewhere, who died of a surfeit of pineapple.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Interesting photographs.
Sad to think that the mango season would soon be over. But then, seasons come and go and come back again.
Abraham Tharakan.

Lucy said...

Those photos are great - I like the big splashes of pink inthe first ones, in the clothes and the cotton candy.

Vikram Nandwani said...

Hey... Great Photographs... simply loved the Autorikshaw.... & I am going n getting some Mangoes for myself :)

H said...

oddly enough, I chanced upon yours when I googled Sula white. Most people I know don't seem to dig it too much, but I kind of like it [there i go being noncomittal again].

Like your style of writing, will be back for more. :-)

Anonymous said...

N,

Banganappalli's have such a wonderful smell to 'em. I leave them in a basket on the kitchen top, and since I leave the A/C off during the day, when I come back the house smells of ripening mangoes. Don't know how long they'll be available here in S'pore, but it's a nice treat that reminds me of the old "fruit market" near High Court that I frequented as a youth. Don't know if it's still there.

By the way, I do miss your old artwork - of the European striding across an Indian rural landscape. Where was that from? It was whimsical, even if somewhat colonial.

Ramesh Gandhi said...

LVQ, Death Ends Fun went down and saw the original of my logo (which I had found in a book of Indian art, without attribution) -- see here:

http://dcubed.blogspot.com/2005/07/tharangambadi-on-my-mind.html

I never thought that the original was actually right here in Tamil Nadu!

Anonymous said...

Any post/review about "The Boss" ?
- Kumar

steve on the slow train said...

I enjoyed the photographs. My future son-in-law is from Bombay, and still calls it that--not Mumbai. Is it the same for Chennai vs. Madras?

Very English to die of a surfeit--King Henry I supposedly died of a surfeit of eels, and John of a surfeit of peaches. (Here in the States, Zachary Taylor died after eating iced cherries and cream, but nobody called it a surfeit.)

Ramesh Gandhi said...

Steve, surfeit is a good word, isn't it? Sounds much better than saying that you've gorged yourself to death. To add to your list, the Buddha died after eating tainted pork -- a surprising case of surfeit... yes, most of us still say Madras instead of Chennai -- I stick to Chennai on the blog to avoid confusion.